| In today's climate of constrained resources, federal government agencies are in the process of rethinking, redesigning, or reengineering the ways in which they conduct business in order to achieve their strategic missions and/or objectives. The effort to ultimately provide effective and efficient customer-centered services requires that agencies maintain a firm grasp and control over their information resources, particularly their information technology. To this end, there is much discussion and research concerning the function, purpose, and optimal configuration of federal agency information resources management (IRM) programs in support of agency programs in general and agency redesign and reengineering efforts in particular. While there existed considerable anecdotal literature that focused on particular IRM units and their support of individual agency programs, there was no empirical assessment that detailed the extent to which IRM assists agencies achieve agency strategic missions/objectives.; This research concentrated on the following question: Has IRM assisted federal agencies achieve their strategic missions and/or objectives? This research used both inductive and deductive methodologies through interviews and mail surveys with IRM and program area managers. The findings from the interviews formed the basis of the mail survey. In all, 11 interviews with IRM managers, program managers, and IRM oversight analysts were conducted. Fifty-four IRM manager and 111 program manager surveys were returned, for a response rate of 54.0% and 55.4%, respectively.; Findings from the research indicate that: (1) There is support for an overall federal agency strategic planning model; (2) Agency size is a predictor of IRM CSF support, satisfaction with IRM services and CSF support, and strategic planning model use, with small agencies indicating greater IRM CSF support, satisfaction with IRM services and CSF support, and strategic planning model adherence than large agencies; and, (3) Agencies that make use of strategic planning steering committees have overall more effective and adequate strategic planning processes than agencies that make no use of steering committees. As the dissertation shows, these findings have both practical and theoretic implications for IRM researchers and practitioners. |
